GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5830, which features core speeds of 800 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs as well as 56 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (67%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 5830 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 70400 (122%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5830 should be much (about 33%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11200 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5830 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (33%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.